I frowned. “She couldn’t believe that.”
“Nah. She didn’t believe it. But Denny did! He was very convincing, too.” Ray looked at me and shrugged. “I guess you had to be there. Anyway, nowadays she spends all her time drinking with those damn bony dogs.”
“Are you two done?” Gryffin stood in the hall, watching us.
“Yeah,” I said. “Bathroom that way?”
He nodded.
Compared to the rest of Ray’s jerry-rigged palace, the bathroom was luxurious. Mexican tiles on the floor, a small Jacuzzi.
Best of all, a well-stocked medicine cabinet.
I locked the door then perused the contents: Percocet, Hydrocodone, Adderall. I pocketed some of the Percocets, but I was more interested in the Adderall. At 25 milligrams apiece, they’d provide a nice little blast of Dexedrine. I popped one then added a handful to what was already in my pocket. Ray wouldn’t miss them.
When I returned, Gryffin was staring stonily out the window. Ray looked at me.
“I thought maybe you decided to use the Jacuzzi,” he said. “You can if you want.”
“No thanks.” I sat down. Immediately a phone began to ring. Ray turned and bellowed at Robert, still sound asleep on the couch.
“Robert. ROBERT. Get the frigging phone!”
Robert stumbled to his feet. I glanced at Gryffin. He raised his eyebrows, silently framing a question: Leave? I nodded.
“Hey, Ray.” Robert stuck his head out from the kitchen. “It’s John Stone.”
“John Stone, John Stone,” Ray muttered. “Now what.”
He shuffled off to get the phone. Robert came out and sat at the table.
“She was looking for you.” He ran a finger across the seaglass necklace.
“What?” I said.
“The other night at the Good Tern? Kenzie—she was looking for you.”
“That girl from the motel?” I frowned. “I don’t even know her. Why would she be looking for me?”
“I dunno.” He stared at his feet. “But she told me. She said there was some lady from New York City staying there. She said you were nice.”
He shot me a baleful look. Gryffin glanced at me then leaned across the table to ask, “So you saw her, Robert?”
“No. We were IMing. I was going to meet her later, but she never showed up. She said you were going to give her a ride.”
“A ride? To where?”
“New York, I guess.”
I stared at him then laughed in disbelief. “Jesus! Poor kid. She must really be hard up.”
“That’s what I said.”
I looked to see if this was a joke, but his face had already shut down. From the kitchen Ray’s voice rumbled on into the telephone.
“Did you know her?” I asked Robert.
“Yeah. We hung out. She gave me CDs to rip.”
He stopped as Ray came back into the room and announced, “That was John Stone. He wants to talk to you guys—not you, Robert, I told him you were here. You have an alibi, though he said he might need to talk to you if she doesn’t show up. But you—”
Ray pointed, first at Gryffin, then me. “And especially you—”
He sank back into his chair. “He wants to question you.”
“Me?” I felt a small hot flare inside my skull, the Adderall’s opening salvo. “What the fuck does he want to talk to me for?”
Ray began to sing, “‘Sheriff John Stone, why don’t you leave me alone…?’”
“This guy’s the sheriff?”
“Hey, Cass,” said Gryffin. “Relax. John’s a good guy, he won’t give you a hard time. What’d he say, Ray?”
“He said they were starting to question people. Her father filed a missing persons thing a few hours ago, and now they have to follow up on it. Even though John told me in great detail how Little Missy’s probably headed off to Lubec or Bangor or someplace with a boyfriend no one knows about, which personally I also think is probably the case, but John has to do his job.
“But he doesn’t have to do it tonight,” he added and laughed again. “’Cause he don’t want to come over here from Collinstown unless somebody has something of interest to tell him. Which I said I’d ask. So, do any of you have something of interest to tell him?”
Gryffin shook his head. “Not that I can think of.”
“I already told him I was IMing with her last night,” said Robert.
All faces turned to me. The red flare inside my head mushroomed into something white and hot. “Not without a fucking attorney.”
Ray slapped his thigh. “That’s the spirit! Stick it to the man!”
“Shut up, Ray.” Gryffin looked annoyed. “You’re overreacting, Cass. If you don’t have anything to tell him, just say that tomorrow. You don’t need to get paranoid; no one’s accusing you of anything. Anyway, I saw you at the Good Tern.”
I could see Robert watching me with those blank cold eyes. A song went through my head: I was just gonna hit him, but I’m gonna kill him now.
“I gotta go,” I said, and stood.
“Yeah,” said Gryffin. “We better get back.”
As I passed the couch, I looked down and saw several CDs scattered across the cushions. Green Day, Mosque; and something else.
I held the CD toward Robert. “This yours?”
“Nope. Kenzie’s. I told you, she gives me stuff to download.”
“Huh.” I looked at it again: Television, Marquee Moon. “She has good taste.”
Robert shrugged. “She likes that old shit.”
I tossed it back onto the couch and followed Ray and Gryffin to the door.
“Well, very nice to meetcha, Cass. Maybe I’ll get hold of your book.” He embraced Gryffin. “You be back tomorrow?
“I doubt it. Got to get back to Chicago.”
Robert stayed where he was. When I looked across the room, I saw him nodding, earbud cords dangling from his ears, his eyes fixed on me. I stared back at him, then turned and followed Gryffin into the night.
15
We walked back most of the way without talking. We were both pretty loaded; it took most of our energy just to keep our footing in the icy mist. I had a nice shiny feeling from the Adderall, and after a few minutes I popped a second to boost it.
But something kept gnawing at the glow: the memory of Mackenzie Libby’s white face in the headlights.
She was looking for you. She said you were going to give her a ride.
Wishful thinking, but why not? I was probably the first person she’d ever seen who might have heard of Marquee Moon. I thought of Patti Smith’s “Piss Factory,” sixteen and time to pay off. Leave home, sleep in the gutter, find yourself a city to live in.
I should have picked her up. Though then, of course, the locals would be coming after me with pitchforks.
“Be careful,” Gryffin warned as the path narrowed. “It’s slippery—”
I felt impervious to anything short of a bullet to the head. When we came to the final stretch leading to the house I began to run. I tripped and fell, hard.
“Hey.” Gryffin hurried to my side. “I said be careful! Are you okay?”
He crouched beside me. I pushed him away, but he grabbed my hand and trained the flashlight on it.
“Jesus,” he said. “Doesn’t that—”
“Hurt? Yes.” My palm was slick with blood. “Shit.”
I staggered to my feet, got the Jack Daniel’s and took a swig. Gryffin watched me with a kind of intrigued disgust. I laughed.
“What?” he demanded.
I couldn’t speak, just kept laughing as I wiped my bloodied hand on my jeans. Gryffin turned and walked on. I ran after him, an amphetamine surge knuckling behind my eyeballs so that the darkness splintered into sparks.